We're both unsettled, nighttime creatures
by princess-of-the-worlds
Summary: Voldemort's work spoke to her. They conveyed messages, often about the darkest of humanity and their primal selves, which Hermione understood, could relate to. Voldemort could hide in the shadows all he wanted. But Hermione could recognize a fellow kindred spirit.
Originally posted on tumblr on Tomione Kink Meme's Secret Santa 2k15. Gifted to on tumblr* and Fanfiction.

*I am returning to Fanfiction and Ao3 after two years. Tumblr is the best way to contact me.

* * *

Hermione Granger swiveled to her right, her gorgeous dress swaying hypnotically, as she eyed her reflection in the mirror with appreciation. "You've done a great job, Gin!" she praised her best friend. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that we were two girls from the '20s ready for a night out."

Ginny Weasley smirked, waggling her fingers in the air flippantly. "It'd be only fitting to resemble genuine flappers for such a prestigious event. This gala is basically a glorified costume party."

Hermione scoffed, "It is not a glorified costume party. This is a great honor, you know. Just under a hundred award-winning writers, poets, and gifted musicians and artists from all across the country have been invited. There will be some Pulitzer Prize winners present at the gala. It is very rare for someone from Voldemort's own city to be invited. There is only a handful this year, including me."

"It's all part of Voldemort's mysterious allure," Ginny said in a tone more appropriate for a narrator of a horror flick, straight-faced, before cracking up in a fit of laughter. Regaining her composure, she became serious for a moment, asking Hermione, "Don't take me the wrong way, but what do you think made Voldemort choose you? You are a very gifted writer, but you are pretty low-key in a community full of people with some major talent."

"I will choose to take that as a compliment," Hermione replied in jest. "Really…I don't know. I just feel grateful to be allowed to take part in such an amazing experience."

"Maybe we'll meet Voldemort and discover who the man behind the very secretive mask is." Ginny paused for a millisecond to observe Hermione's reaction to her statement.

"Maybe," Hermione said stoically.

Every community had a resident cloaked in mysteries and secrets.

Voldemort was the San Francisco Bohemian community's.

He had emerged as an upcoming writer and poet over a decade ago, and his fame had only grown through the years. His unknown identity and his alias which literally translated to _flight from death_ in French only fueled the secrecy surrounding him. Voldemort wrote a specific type of literature called _one-shots_ , extremely short novellas based on drama and supernatural aspects. They were generally dark and chilling and all too much addicting considering the fact that Voldemort released only a few a year.

Voldemort also had gained a reputation for his parties. Having started over half a decade ago, he threw a themed gala or ball every few months, coinciding with the release of his newest work, the theme usually based on an aspect of his latest one-shot.

People often wondered who Voldemort was, how he could fund all these parties. Was he a single entity or a group?

Hermione didn't.

Truth was something of her past, since the incident. Everyone lied to her now: her parents, her best friend Harry, her ex-boyfriend and other best friend Ron. Even Ginny who was almost Hermione's sister lied.

Everyone was double-faced.

But, for the true double-faced, Voldemort was the only one who never lied to her.

She never met him, no. Didn't know his identity. Hermione intended to keep it that way.

Voldemort's work spoke to her.

They conveyed messages, often about the darkest of humanity and their primal selves, which Hermione understood, could relate to.

Voldemort could hide in the shadows all he wanted.

But Hermione could recognize a fellow kindred spirit.

* * *

Ginny stood on before the stairs descending into the room. "Woah…" she whispered dazedly, stunned by the scene unfolding below.

Hermione came to a stop next to her, her eyes surveying the scene. Her heart pitter-pattered in amazement.

It was as if stepping into a time capsule. Everything had been frozen in the 1920s.

The balcony that Ginny and Hermione were standing on continued all the way around the circular room, forming a ring. Opposite them, the other side of the balcony had been converted into a stage, complete with a jazz trio and a piano man and a gorgeous dark-skinned woman who Hermione recognized as Grammy-winning singer Angelina Johnson crooning into an old-fashioned microphone.

Individual booths of mahogany tables and dark leather benches were tucked into alcoves below the balcony, spread out through the room. The walls were paneled with handsome burgundy wallpaper, throwing the alcoves into the shadow, light only provided from the elegant lamps on the wall. A decadent bar was set on the side diagonal to the stage.

The center of the room was a dancefloor, the floor tiled with marble. Crowds of people mingled on the floor, some couples swaying in time to the music in almost intimate embraces.

It was a little overwhelming.

Champagne sloshed from delicate glasses. Chatter filled the room from all around. Men wore fine tuxedos with bowties and slicked-back hair. Women were dressed in gowns of all shades and material, all flashy and beautiful, with strings of pearls hanging 'round their necks and elaborate headpieces and fashionable bobs.

Ginny and Hermione fit right in.

Ginny wore a simple, sleeveless silk gold dress that ended at her knees with a red net overlay and plain red heels. There was a diamond choker at her neck. Her glossy red hair had been teased into chin-length curls, a gold headband embedded with pearls around her forehead. Her makeup was natural with a subtle pink lip, as to not detract attention from the rest of her ensemble.

But Hermione….Ginny had ensured that Hermione shone besides her.

Hermione donned a stunning dress in the same style and cut as Ginny's that started with midnight blue at the neckline and slowly descended into azure and cerulean and blue-grey, ending with grey at the hem, also covered in silver beadwork. Pearls were looped around her delicate neck. Hermione's bushy, golden-brown hair had been tamed and cropped, just for the occasion, into chin-length waves, complete with a peacock headpiece and midnight blue heels. Ginny had completed Hermione's look with dark, smoky eye makeup and a seductive burgundy lip.

They certainly resembled flappers.

Hermione felt like a flapper, the exhilaration that accompanied the act of slipping into the skin of someone who wasn't her, someone who wasn't Hermione Granger, descending upon her.

"There's gotta be someone we actually know here," Ginny murmured besides her.

Hermione hummed in agreement.

Ginny let out a hiss of excitement upon spotting a familiar dirty-blond head among the revelers below. "Look, it's Luna!' she whispered to Hermione with joy.

At that moment, the head glanced in their direction, and pleasant surprise was evident on her face. The girl started to maneuver her way out of the crowd and towards them.

Luna Lovegood was a well-known violinist in the Bohemian community. She was an odd creature, beautiful and intelligent but whimsical and strange. But she had a way with music and the strings of her instrument that tugged at the heartstrings of even the most heart-hardened men and women.

"Hermione! Ginny!" Luna exclaimed with joy upon arriving in front of them, her voice light as a birdsong. "What brings you here, my loves?"

She was lithe and graceful, her blond hair cropped into an old-fashioned bob. She donned a cream-colored silk dress with gold beadwork and gold heels. Luna wore no headpiece or jewelry or makeup, except for an eye-catching red color on her lips

Ginny cracked a grin.

Luna had a way making anyone feel welcome. She was old-fashioned in her treatment of people and would have truly fit in the 1920s.

"Hermione was invited for the first time," Ginny informed Luna.

Luna grinned heartily. "'Mione, dear, that's wonderful! You truly deserve this. I only wonder why you hadn't been invited sooner."

"Thank you, Luna. It means a lot coming from you." Hermione attempted a smile, but she felt that it resembled more of a grimace.

"It's all overwhelming, isn't it?" questioned Luna dreamily.

"Yes…" Hermione admitted uneasily.

"Don't worry. I have someone to introduce you two ladies to. I feel that you will take a liking to him, Hermione." Luna grasped Ginny's thin wrist in one hand and Hermione's in the other and pulled them down the stairs and into the crowd.

* * *

Hermione and Ginny followed closely behind Luna, weaving in and out of the partying crowd.

The dancefloor was a little more tightly-packed than Hermione expected, and, a few times, Hermione almost lost track of Ginny's fiery curls.

"Is that-?" Ginny hissed to Luna, Hermione unable to catch the latter half of her question through the music and buzz of the dancers.

"Yes, that was Daphne and Astoria Greengrass." Luna turned her head slightly to ensure that Ginny heard her reply.

"This. Is. Bloody. Fantastic!" Ginny chirped happily. "I love their songs. Astoria has an amazing voice."

Finally Luna came to a stop behind a dark-haired man conversing with a brunette in an emerald dress and tapped him on the shoulder. "Tom, I leave for one moment, and you find yourself a new dance partner!" she frowned in jest.

The man nodded to his conversation partner who wandered away. "I could never replace you, darling." He spun around to smile at Luna, charisma glittering in his shadowed eyes.

Beside Hermione, Ginny let out a quiet whoop. "That man is hot! Too bad I have Harry, right?" She made eyes at Hermione, pointedly glancing at the man engrossed in Luna, as if to remind Hermione of her stagnant status of a single woman.

Luna, who swung both ways, was chattering away excitedly to the man in what was a clearly platonic manner.

The man _was_ a gorgeous specimen. Dark hair slicked-back. Dark eyes that were a void of any observable emotion. Alabaster skin but with a healthy look. Cheekbones that could cut and an aristocratic slope to the nose. Suave from his black bowtie to his polished dress shoes.

Hermione snapped back from her observations just in time to meet the man's eyes, his gaze brushing over her, a smirk tugging at his beautiful lips.

She bristled, suddenly defensive.

"And who are these lovely ladies?" the man questioned Luna, still eyeing Hermione.

Hermione glared back at him, her chocolate eyes narrowing fiercely.

"Yes!" Luna jumped up. Gesturing at Ginny, "Ginny Weasley. Like-"

The man cut Luna off. "Ginny Weasley, formerly of the Holyhead Harpies. I found it such a shame you pulled your right hamstring and ended your career. You made such a promising striker." His grin never reached his eyes.

Ginny laughed bitterly. "You and me both." Her brief career and forced retirement as a soccer player was still a sore point for Ginny, having only been a year since the incident that ended her career.

"I wish you luck for your journalism stint. _The Prophet_ could use some good writers. It's past its glory days," he said to Ginny before turning back to Hermione.

"And this is Hermione Granger. You may recognize her, Tom," Luna beamed at Hermione.

"Writer _and_ poet," the man acknowledged with respect. "You are truly gifted. Very few writers are just as wonderful poets."

Warmth rose in her cheeks. "Thanks…" Hermione replied, unable to keep the confusion out of her voice. "Who are you again?"

Ginny groaned under her breath, discreetly reaching to pinch Hermione.

Hermione leaned away just in time.

The man simply laughed in his baritone voice. "I believe that Luna failed to introduce me. I am Tom. Tom Riddle." He smirked at Hermione again.

Ginny gasped while Hermione froze in surprise. "Wait! You're _the_ Tom Riddle? The artist?" Ginny cried.

Tom frowned. "I was the last time I checked." He locked gazes with Hermione, raising a dark eyebrow.

Noticing Tom's interactions with Hermione, Luna tugged Ginny away enthusiastically. "Ginny and I will leave you two to be."

They stepped into the crowd, and Tom and Hermione were then left in silence.

* * *

Tom spoke up again.

"I found your latest poem _Control_ quite relatable." His tone was sincere. "I know what it is like to lose of sense of yourself, to lose your hold on your life."

Hermione glanced up to catch Tom's eyes hardening.

Tom continued. "It was amazing how aptly you captured the sensation of being helpless, being powerless, in words, love. You have surely experienced it yourself to be able to put it so clearly." His tone had grown darker.

Hermione's breath whooshed out of her lungs, and her heart began to pitter-patter at an irregular beat. "Thank you," she said hastily, rushing to distract from what would mostly be a flood of questions. "That was actually one of my most personal pieces." She lowered her gaze to the floor. Hurriedly, she continued. "Ginny and her boyfriend always joke that it is because I have an extreme need to be in control of my life. I'm a control freak." She trailed off lamely, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.

He seemed to be aware of the effect his probing was having on her. "I feel the same way," Tom admitted calmly.

Hermione's eyes shot up to meet his in astonishment.

"Which is why I paint," Tom elaborated. "Each stroke, each color. It allows me to have control of something I've created, especially when I do not have control of myself."

She swallowed nervously. This discussion was once again veering in a direction that Hermione could not control. "I admit," Hermione stated. "I don't really know much about the art world. I mean, I've seen a few of your pieces, but other than that…"

"Ms. Granger," he chuckled. "You don't to know much about art to enjoy it."

"Please, call me Hermione, Mr. Riddle," Hermione replied awkwardly.

"Only if you call me Tom."

"Of course, Tom." Hermione shoved down her uneasiness and grinned.

"Would you like to dance?" Tom gestured to the dance floor.

"Um…" Hermione hesitated.

"Not one for dancing?" he questioned upon seeing her uneasy expression.

"Actually," Hermione laughed quietly. "I was trained in ballet and certain types of waltzes when I was a child back in London. My parents were the high society type there. Then we moved here to San Francisco when I was ten."

"I myself," Tom added. "I was born and raised here, actually. SF, born and bred."

"Well, yeah. So I just never really felt, um, comfortable dancing." Hermione grimaced. 'Well, yeah,' and 'um.' Where had her words gone? She was a writer. She was expected to be eloquent.

"Nonsense. I shall not force you to do something that would make you feel discomfort." Tom nodded at Hermione, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Though it would be a shame to not see you in action. You seem very graceful."

Hermione blushed very severely, feeling heat in his gaze. She rubbed her neck awkwardly.

Straightening back up, Tom snapped his fingers. "How 'bout I give you a tour?" His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

Hermione felt her gaze drawn to his lips. Once again she blushed and stammered, "Of where?"

"Here, of course! We are in an art gallery!" Tom retreated to the bar behind him and grabbed a bottle and two delicate glasses. He began to move towards the stairs leading to the balcony, Hermione following him not far behind.

* * *

Tom passed through the lavish entrance of the gallery with an easy swagger. Hermione trailed behind, eyeing the paintings and portraits.

"Is that Hannah Abbott's _Phases of the Moon_?" Hermione gasped. While not well-informed in the art world, she was acquainted with and admired the Hannah's work.

"Yes, it is." Tom chuckled upon seeing Hermione's wide-eyed expression. "I've met her actually."

Hermione turned her attention from the painting to Tom in surprise. "Really?"

"At an art convention in Chicago. It was a few years back, in '09. She was starting to gain fame. We exchanged a few tips, chatted a little." Tom continued to stride past all the gallery's main exhibits. He turned the corner to access a door barely visible among the handsome mahogany paneling on the wall.

"What's this?" Hermione questioned, intrigue glittering in her coffee eyes.

Tom chuckled, his lips turning up a little smirk. "This is my private collection. I have a partnership with the SF Gallery. They place my collection on display every couple of months, and, in exchange, I recruit up-and-coming artists to debut at the gallery's art exhibitions."

"Wow," Hermione whistled with appreciation. "That's very kind of you. It's difficult for artists, writers, and musicians to get their start."

Tom gave her no response, fishing a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door instead. He slide the door into the wall, a couple of panels sliding alongside it, to create an opening to a corridor that was quite wide. "There are a few more wings like this in the gallery, full of collections belonging to artists or art collectors. Every time a collection is opened up to the public, they simply open up the wing," he explained, tracing a hand over the smooth wood of the wall as he strode through the opening.

"Don't you worry about security?" she wondered audibly.

"Actually," Tom remarked with humor, "the gallery has almost the same security level as the SFPD station or City Hall."

"Really?" Hermione's jaw dropped. "All that for _art_?" She tried to backtrack, realizing that her tone could have come off as dismissive. "I mean I appreciate art and can see its beauty, but isn't that a bit excessive?"

Tom shrugged nonchalantly, unbothered. "A little bit, for such a low-key gallery. They're not the Louvre or the Hermitage, but the gallery considers it an investment. All this art is worth quite a chunk of money right now, but could be worth double or triple in another decade or two."

"Huh." She tilted her head in consideration. "I wonder if I'll ever be worth as much."

Tom chuckled under his breath. "I trust that you will." He led Hermione to the first painting of the collection.

It was a simple landscape of the back of a bench overlooking the sea, clearly San Francisco from the view of the Pier 39 sign in the corner, titled _Solitude_.

Hermione stepped to the wall and dragged her fingers over the canvas and paint lightly. "There is just something…so lonely about it," she breathed slowly, turning her head towards Tom. Their eyes met, and Hermione shuddered, a strange sensation akin to desire running through her body. She shook it off and returned to strolling around the room.

"I was at a slightly low point in my life at that time," he muttered quietly. "It was at the beginning of my career…as I told you previously that is why my grandmother encouraged me to paint. She was a very talented artist in her day. Painting helped keep the solitude away in the beginning, and, then, ironically, it turned out that I had quite an aptitude for it, similar to her."

Hermione swallowed uneasily, her heart thudding uncontrollably. "I have felt that helplessness before. I write as you paint, to be in control," she admitted for the first time that evening.

"'Control, it's what we cannot keep,'" Tom quoted huskily, his voice dropping an octave.

"You quoted my poetry," she murmured in appreciation, her eyes flickering to stare at his lips again.

He smirked lightly. "I know. You are a brilliant writer, almost as brilliant as you are stunning." He stepped closer to Hermione, lifting a hand to cup Hermione's chin.

Hermione's cheeks burned, and she ducked slightly to avoid Tom's hand.

The spell broke.

Hermione realized her close proximity to Tom and stepped away slowly. She gulped, her throat suddenly dry.

Tom's eyes harden, and he too stepped away. Clearing his throat with a quiet cough, he swiveled to lead Hermione deeper into the wing. "There is more art this way," he said, his voice strained.

"Of course!" Hermione cried uncharacteristically. "More art! Art is good!" Art keeps you from flirting and trying to kiss a man you are barely acquainted with, she thought.

But there was something between them, a connection, which transcended mutual physical attraction. She felt it the first time their conversation began to veer to close to her inner thoughts and emotions and felt it just mere minutes ago.

Hermione knew that Tom could also feel the strange bond, the connection, because of the brief glimpses she had gotten throughout the night of his character. His loss of control from his past was a bitter point for, it was for her too, yet he brought it up in front of her anyway. Was it because he could sense some kinship in her? From the way he closed off each time Hermione mentioned something personal, she could tell Tom was reserved and never let go of his grip on himself, refused to feel overwhelmed or helpless. Then what was it that brought on that brief display of almost wanton behavior?

Obviously, they had experienced some similar trauma or something, _something_ that caused a person to become closed off, keep a check on their every emotion and thought. What was his _something_? She knew hers.

No. No, no, no.

Hermione refused to dwell on _it_. _It_ had been over ten years ago. She was in a good place in her life, or at least moving towards a good place.

Change the topic, she advised herself. Bring up something new.

"You mentioned that your grandmother, that she was a talented artist and encouraged you to paint," Hermione trailed off.

Tom smiled, the some of the most sincere emotion that Hermione had seen him display the entire night. "She was very well-known on the side of the country. Critics called her 'the next Frida Kahlo,'" he stated fondly, something alight in his eyes, making his dark pupils seem alive. "She was on her way to great fame and recognition. Until she was involved in a car accident when she was forty." His expression soured. "She broke her right wrist permanently. She wasn't able to write or paint for the rest of her life. She loved painting and suffered from depression from long period of time until I was born. "

Hermione gasped. She couldn't imagine the ability to do something she loved ripped away, couldn't imagine not ever writing again. "That's dreadful," she stated, staring him straight in his onyx eyes, something about the emotion in his eyes making her heart beat slightly faster. "She must be proud of you now, though."

The corners of Tom's lips turned down slightly. "She passed away a few years ago," he murmured quickly.

"Oh," Hermione whispered, her heart twinging painfully. He had obviously loved his grandmother dearly. "I am so sorry for your loss. She must have been a wonderful person."

"She was," he replied, turning away.

Something passed between them in that moment; brief and fleeting as it was, Hermione could not understand it.

Desperate to move on, she changed the topic. "What about the rest of your family? Were they around? Did anyone else paint in your family?"

That was the worst possible thing to ask.

Tom shut down immediately as he brought himself back in control. His face went slack, devoid of emotion. His eyes hardened again, tightly sealing away that joy and melancholy that Hermione had glimpsed just previously. A smirk pulled at his lips again, almost cruelly.

His family was connected to his past, Hermione pondered. Softly, almost shyly, she whispered, "May I see the rest of your paintings?"

His reply was immediate and monotone, almost gruff. "Of course." He led the way further into the wing.

* * *

Hermione studied his paintings as they passed, sensing a glimpse of Tom's character in each one.

The ones from the beginning of the gallery shared similar shades of blue and grey and white with the occasional splash of red and black. _Depression or solitude, perhaps?_

The next set of paintings were done in extreme hues of angry red, almost resembling spilled blood, and black and darker colors. _Anger issues, destructive…_

The final couple of paintings all had tones of monotone black and white and grey. _Maturity, maybe? Control…_

Did they represent the stages of Tom's life in the last decade?

Hermione's inquisitive nature got the best of her.

She felt weirdly drawn to this man she barely knew personally but knew deeper on a psychological level.

It was strange, wasn't it, what she was about to do. Entrust a stranger with her deepest and darkest secret.

She stepped closer to Tom who had been purposely glancing away from her direction and spoke:

"I killed someone," she admitted, her heart rocketing. The truth that finally escaped her after a decade hung in the air, a dark and dank cloud of smoke shifting to mask her.

That brought his attention rushing back to her.

"Huh?" he questioned, confusion and bewilderment written on her face.

Hermione continued, "All night we've discussed and conversed about the loss of control. How helpless it made us feel. How we channel that helpless and loss of control into our work to get rid of it. How we never want to feel that way again. But is it true? What made a man like you lose control and close yourself off? It had something to do with your family that you refuse to mention. So what made you, Tom Riddle, lose _control_?" She punctuated each sentence and question by stepping closer and closer to him, staring up at him with coffee eyes devoid of life.

He kept silent, his gaze shifting from staring into her eyes to burning a hole in the wall behind her, his jaw clenching tightly.

"I killed someone," she repeated robotically. "About ten years ago, I was a senior at Columbia, majoring in Law. My parents only allowed me to move across the country as a teenager because I had eight years of Krav Maga under my belt. On the day after my graduation, the day I was meant to move back home, I was lonely and devastated. The flight that was bringing my best friends to visit me was delayed. My parents were on the other side of the country, in California. That evening I went out for a drink and may have had too many because I was restless and came back to find the girl I shared an apartment with hooking up with my boyfriend of three years. Cormac, the son of a wealthy businessman from New York, was at Columbia on a football scholarship and wasn't the brightest or cleverest, but he liked and respected me enough to understand my choice to go slow. Or so I thought," Hermione laughed bitterly but continued. "I snuck into my room and sat with a broken heart, listening to them make out. Until I heard her scream. I rushed into her room and found Cormac attempting to assault her. I pulled him off her and bashed his brains in. There was no struggle; Cormac was too stunned to find his reserved and prissy girlfriend attacking him. My roommate called 911 as I watched the life drain out of Cormac." She stopped. Her throat was dry, and her voice was growing strained, but she carried on. "Cormac's family attempted to press charges, but my roommate testified, and the judge ruled it as defense. That fact that I was unusually drunk played a big factor. I was declared innocent, and Cormac's death was covered up."

Tom cleared his throat with a slight cough. He was locked in place, every bone in his body stiff.

"For months, almost three years, after the incident, I was in an indescribable state. For days on end, I wouldn't move from my bed. I wouldn't speak because noise was unbearable. I couldn't face my parents who eventually moved back to London, so I moved in with Ginny. We survived mostly on the meager jobs she took and money sent by our parents. More than once, Ginny came home to my comatose body or me bleeding out on our couch. One day, Ginny couldn't take it anymore. She sat me down and forced me to write, remembering that I had always loved writing. So I wrote and wrote and wrote. There would be days that my fingers would cramp or I would not be able to move my right hand at all, but those days I felt control. I could feel my control coming back, and slowly by slowly, I recovered. Around the same time, Voldemort came out with his first work. Ginny bought it for me, and I devoured it. Because there it was, what I had felt for the last few years of my life, in words. I don't care who Voldemort is, I don't need to." Tears formed in the corners of Hermione's eyes, but they went unshed when she squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed quickly. Her eyes flickered open, and she continued, "But those years of depressions didn't come from the terror of murdering a man, from the guilt. No. My loss of control came from something else."

"When I began to punch Cormac, he was on his knees after a few well-placed blows to his ankles. He was at my mercy, almost completely helpless. Something descended on me, a savageness, which came from being the predator. I only realized what I had done when I was staring at Cormac's lifeless body, restrained by my neighbor who had rushed in after hearing my roommate's cries for me to stop. I murdered a man not because I had to, but, because I could. And, then, I realized that I had enjoyed it. I had felt satisfaction because I had enjoyed Cormac's death, a death caused by me. And, at that moment, I was sickened and ashamed and unable to look myself in the eye because _I had been painfully sober when I beat Cormac to death_. I had not lost control of my body, but I had indeed lost control of my mind and heart." Hermione grasped Tom's chin in a hand, forcing him to glance back at her. "So, I repeat to you, what made you, Tom Riddle, snap and lose control?"

He didn't respond. He couldn't. He was still stiff but in full control of his body.

Hermione cocked her head in consideration, still staring down Tom. She had let go of him, though.

Seconds passed.

Hermione waited for what felt like hours.

Finally, Tom spoke.

"When I was eighteen, when I graduated from high school, my grandmother went out of country. My grandfather and father and step-mother did not attend my graduation nor the party my friends threw for me for my acceptance to Harvard. Tom Riddle Sr. was an asshole. He was a rich hedge fund manager with a large inheritance from my already wealthy grandparents but spent nothing on my mother or me. My grandfather and father hated me because I was a bastard child. My father had impregnated my mother, Merope, as a teenager, and my grandmother forced him to wed my mother. He spoke barely once a month to her, and, when my mother died of cancer when I was five, happily remarried Narcissa Malfoy who already had two twin sons, Draco and Abraxas. My grandmother who adored me mainly raised me. I grew up in the Riddle household, virtually invisible or a servant, forced to watch as my true father lorded his false children over me, his birth son." Tom's eyes came alive, the black fuming and storming with rage. "On the night of my graduation, when I returned, my father announced that he was gifting Draco and Abraxas expensive cars and apartments to live in while they attended NYU. I had been valedictorian, the top-ranked student in my high school. I was the star lacrosse player, the top sprinter on the cross-country team. Draco and Abraxas barely scraped by in honors classes while I floated through the hardest AP courses. They had each been kicked out of the football team twice. Draco had almost been expelled. But still _they_ were the better children. When Tom Sr. became drunk and began to curse his mistakes as a teenager and the burden I had been as an _innocent_ child, I snapped. I set the house alit with my grandfather, parents, and step-siblings still inside. I spun a tale to the police that I had returned much later from the party and had found the house burned to the ground. My lovely, adoring grandmother believed me and kept me from pressed charges with her influence. We moved to a new house near Harvard, and she believed I suffered from the loss of my family. She was wrong. I suffered because I had enjoyed the darkness of death, of murder, and craved more but couldn't afford to." Tom scoffed angrily. "There," he spit at Hermione. "You have the reason I lost control, what I sought to hide from everyone."

Hermione gazed at him owlishly for a moment, her expression unreadable, before stepping on the tips of her toes, stretching her neck, and crushing her lips to Tom's.

She kissed an unresponsive Tom for a heartbeat before he wove an elegant hand into her styled hair, messing up Hermione's waves, and began to dominate the kiss. Lifting Hermione for a brief moment so that she would wrap her slim legs around his torso, he pinned them to the wall, swallowing Hermione's little gasps and moans.

Hermione slung her arms around Tom's neck as their heads moved side-to-side in passion, toying with the stray curls on the back of his head. She gave a curl a sharp, harsh tug, and Tom groaned quietly into the kiss.

After eons, Tom withdrew his lips from Hermione's and began to nibble and suck at the graceful arch of her neck.

Hermione threw her head back, and her mind clouded over with lust. Somewhere in the fog, she heard Tom mutter something into her collarbone. "What?" she breathed out, her voice husky.

"Marvolo," he whispered. "My middle name is Marvolo."

Then he pulled Hermione in for another breath-stealing kiss, and her brain began to turn to mush again.

But her lightning-fast mind was able to comprehend what Tom whispered into her skin and worked quickly to decipher the puzzle, rearranging letters and untangling phrases.

And then, when she had reached her answer, she let out a little gasp, not one of desire, now, but of surprise and whispered against Tom's lips:

"You are Voldemort."


End file.
